The kanji on the left is read as "saki" and I don't understand it. I think studying it reveals something about the way you talk about time in Japanese. It means, and read these carefully, "(1) previous; prior; former; (2) point (e.g., pencil); tip; end; nozzle; head (of a line); (3) destination; (4) the first priority; the future; objective; sequel; remainder; the other party;". What kind of word means both former and the future? Sequel and future? The objective and what already happened? It seems a little odd to me.
There's another kanji which is pronounced "mae". It means both "physically in front of" as well as "previous". I guess that's like the English word "before". But it also seems strange, because we think of something that's in front of us as something that is about to happen, and things behind us as the past. But what is "before us" can mean both "that which came before us" and "that which is about to come".So this idea in both Japanese and English of words of position and time, it's ambiguous.
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